Effects of Exotic Spartina alterniflora Invasion on Soil Phosphorus and Carbon Pools and Associated Soil Microbial Community Composition in Coastal Wetlands

Lei Wang; Jiahui Yuan; Yu Wang; Clayton R Butterly; Deli Tong; Bo Zhou; Xiuzhen Li; Huabin Zhang

doi:10.1021/acsomega.0c06161

Effects of Exotic Spartina alterniflora Invasion on Soil Phosphorus and Carbon Pools and Associated Soil Microbial Community Composition in Coastal Wetlands

ACS Omega. 2021 Feb 13;6(8):5730-5738. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c06161. eCollection 2021 Mar 2.

Authors

Lei Wang¹, Jiahui Yuan^{2

3}, Yu Wang², Clayton R Butterly⁴, Deli Tong⁵, Bo Zhou¹, Xiuzhen Li⁶, Huabin Zhang⁷

Affiliations

¹ Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, Nanjing 210042, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Changshu National Agro-Ecosystem Observation and Research Station, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.
³ University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 10049, China.
⁴ School of Agriculture and Food, Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville Campus, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia.
⁵ College of Life Science, Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang 110034, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China.
⁷ Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Bioresources of Saline Soils, Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Coastal Wetland Bioresources and Environmental Protection, Jiangsu Synthetic Innovation Center for Coastal Bio-agriculture, Yancheng Teachers University, Yancheng 224007, China.

Abstract

Soil microorganisms can be altered by plant invasion into wetland ecosystems and comprise an important linkage between phosphorus (P) availability and soil carbon (C) chemistry; however, the intrinsic mechanisms of P and C transformation associated with microbial community and function are poorly understood in coastal wetland. In this study, we used a sequential fractionation method and ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to capture the changes in soil P pools and C chemical composition with bare flats (BF), native Phragmites australis(PA), and invasive Spartina alterniflora(SA), respectively. The responses of the soil microbial community using phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) profiling and function indicated by nine enzyme activities associated with C, nitrogen (N), and P cycles were also investigated. Compared to PA and BF, SA invasion significantly (P < 0.05) changed P pools and mainly increased the available P by 17.5 and 37.0%, respectively. The presence of the plants (SA and PA) significantly (P < 0.05) altered the soil C chemical composition mainly by affecting the aliphatic functional groups, resulting in a lower alkyl C/O-alkyl C ratio value. Compared to BF and SA, PA significantly (P < 0.05) increased arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) abundance. Soil enzyme activity, especially for the P and C cycle enzymes, was also affected by plant species with the highest geometric mean enzyme and hydrolase activity for the PA zone. We also found that soil C compositions and P pools were associated with microbial community structure and enzyme activity, respectively. However, little interaction between C and P was found on either soil microbial composition or soil enzyme activity variation. Further, microbial community composition was tightly correlated with the soil P compared to soil C chemistry, while enzyme activity showed more response with soil C chemistry compared to soil P pool changes.